The One Thing I Would Like Western Governments to Do
By Jennifer Zeng On November 14, 2012 @ 6:27 pm In Thinking About China |
On Nov. 1, 2012, I traveled to Canada for the first time to attend the Free Thinking Film Festival in Ottawa, as the main subject of an award-winning documentary, Free China: The Courage to Believe. This film examines widespread human rights violations inside China—from forced abortions to live organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience—through the stories and experiences of Dr. Charles Lee, an American-Chinese businessman, and myself, a mother, author, and former Communist Party member.
Both Charles and I, along with hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens in China, have been incarcerated, tortured, and subjected to slave labor for our spiritual beliefs—we both practice Falun Gong.
After the screening, I observed that the audience was quite moved by our experiences. Many were also shocked by the extent of the physical and psychological torture that Charles and I had to endure, and by the fact that Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for the harvesting of their vital organs. One audience member angrily asked, “What has the UN done in all these years?”
Another audience member, MP Bryan Hayes of the Conservative Party, asked, “What is the one thing you’d like the Canadian government to do?”
Mr. David Kilgour, a 27 year Canadian Parliamentary Member; and co-author of Bloody Harvest, The Killing of Falun Gong for their Organs, which provides a comprehensive analysis based on intensive investigation into the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China, answered by saying, “Well, we actually have 25 things that we’d like the Canadian Government to do. The Foreign Ministry can at least post a warning on its website to inform Canadians that if you go to China for an organ transplant, there is a high chance that someone like Jennifer could be killed so that you can utilize her organs. Would you then still want to go to China?”
For me, I would like the Canadian Government, as well as other governments around the world, to demand the Chinese Communist Party stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners immediately. This includes:
1. Stop killing Falun Gong practitioners for their organs;
2. Release all imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners;
3. Lift the ban on Falun Gong and allow the publication and distribution of Falun Gong books in China.
The question here is how far is the Canadian government, and how far are other governments, prepared to go to make this happen? What has the world done to stop the Chinese Communist Party from killing thousands or tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs? What level of heinous crimes has to occur before governments are willing to do anything?
There have been so many times when Falun Gong practitioners have attempted to raise awareness of live organ harvesting when people would ask, “Where is the evidence?” Whenever I hear this response, my heart becomes heavy.
Falun Gong practitioners are a group of peaceful and law-abiding citizens who hold no state power at all in their hands. When Anne, wife of a Chinese doctor, first informed the public back in 2006 that her husband alone had removed corneas from the living bodies of more than 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners; and that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were still jailed in an underground facility and could be killed at any time, I felt like l was hearing the most terrible news about my missing family members.
For me, the logic is very clear. If the allegations are there, if respectable individuals like David Kilgour and his co-author David Matas have already used their own recourses and undertaken investigations to prove that this IS happening, if knowledgeable transplant doctors like Dr. Jacob Lavee cried out that this IS happening based on their professional judgment, if 106 US Congress members have written to the U.S. Government to demand the release of organ-harvesting related information that the U.S. Government might have, isn’t it the obligation of the United Nations or any other government that really respects human life to take action?
Why is it so difficult to undertake further investigations, or to publish a warning or condemnation? Do we have preferences or selections when attempting to uphold justice? If there is a differentiation or selection about what kind of “justice” we are prepared to uphold, can we still call it justice?
Sure, we are doing business with the Chinese Communist Party; and the party still controls the largest military force in the world. However, with the attempted defection of Wang Lijun, former police chief of Chongqing city, with the sentencing of Gu Kailai and the ouster of Bo Xilai, more and more evidence of the real crimes behind these men’s actions, which are attributed to the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, is emerging.
A crime of such a scale cannot be hidden forever, and the Chinese Communist Party is not as strong as we imagine. I believe that as soon as the crime of organ harvesting becomes known to the majority of Chinese people, the party will collapse.
What we may need to do now is only to put the last straw on the camel’s back. Otherwise, when our children or grandchildren ask us, “why didn’t you do anything to stop this crime?”, what can we say?
Jennifer Zeng is the author of “Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman’s Fight for Freedom and Falun Gong.” Before being persecuted in China for her faith, she was a researcher and consultant in the Development Research Center of the State Council, the State Cabinet. Her story is featured in the award-winning documentary, “Free China; the Courage to Believe,” co-produced by New Tang Dynasty Television and World2Be Productions.
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing any longer to participate in the persecution. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
Jennifer at Prospect Park in New York on June 29, 2017. Photo by Benny Zhang
